Opponents reacted with protests and sometimes violence.
Recruitment for the vast expansion of the armed forces became more difficult, and federal authorities turned more frequently to ever-increasing inducements for volunteers and the threat of conscription. This motive proved unpopular in many areas of the North, and racist sentiment now combined with fears of job competition with blacks, higher taxes, expanded government power, and what some considered to be the tyranny of a stronger executive branch. Although some states managed to delay implementing it by successfully recruiting volunteers, by autumn the government had begun widespread use of the “state draft” or “militia draft,” authorizing the president to draft militiamen from the states, especially after President Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation after the Battle of Antietam.īy promising to free the slaves still held in rebel territory on January 1, 1863, the president’s executive order explicitly made the war a conflict over slavery and saving the Union. In July 1862, Congress passed a militia law authorizing the president to draft state militia troops into service in the national army. But as the conflict wore on and casualties mounted, the Northern rush to enlist to put down the rebellion and preserve national unity eventually ebbed, and the question became relevant to the Union. The Confederacy had introduced conscription first and experienced its own widespread popular opposition.
government implemented during the Civil War. How do you force someone to fight for someone else’s freedom? This question reveals the irony of the policy of conscription that the U.S.
Use this Narrative after the Chapter 8 Introductory Essay: 1860-1877 to introduce students to the reactions of citizens and immigrants to the conscription laws during the Civil War.
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